


Enter Bruticus

by Merfilly



Series: Shuttle And Seeker [1]
Category: Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron interviews the Combaticons upon their arrival in Polyhex</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enter Bruticus

Megatron looked at the smallest of this new team he had on his hands. Sometimes, he wasn't exactly certain that his second thought things through. As the wheel-based gestalt member shifted in his seat, Megatron tried very hard to remember that everyone deserved second chances.

"Tell me again why you and your team are in Polyhex," Megatron said with all the patience he could muster.

"Be glad to, big mech on the block. See, we heard there was this winning deal going on over in Iacon, right? Tear down the Senate, all that static? Only there's this mech who has no sense of what a bargain he was getting when we showed up. Ugly dude, all energon-crusty and stuff."

Megatron sat back in his chair, recording everything to go over with Soundwave and Shockwave later. "That would be our enemy, Optimus Prime. Which continues to make me uneasy about your motives, if you were willing to go to him first."

"Getting to that, big mech. Don't twist up that hip plating just yet." Swindle flashed a grin at Megatron, and the leader, despite himself, found himself relaxing in his seat. "So, crusty energon mech is all 'serve me or die' and then there's this massive explosion as I'm telling the dent-head that it just ain't gonna fly. We all might have just gotten out of the deep freeze, but that doesn't mean we're cheap or easy!"

"The explosion..." Megatron prompted, trying to keep this on track, even if the wheeled mech's vernacular was promising to be as interesting as Soundwave's could be.

"Yeah, that. So crusty mech wanders off yelling at mechs that aren't even there, and the ones who are are pretending he's so legit, but my team and I, we're getting the heebie jeebies, and the deal just smells rotten. Brawl thought it would be fun to check out what made things go boom, and I'm thinking that might be the dumbest thing I'd heard, but Onslaught says we will...and you just don't argue with Onslaught. Little temper tucked in that frame, I tell you." Swindle noted the optics on him were starting to get that dull look of losing attention, and grinned brightly. "So we went, and what do you know, but there's our good old buddy, Starscream!"

"You'd never met him before in your existence, as your sentences were issued before Starscream was even Kindled," Megatron pointed out.

"Yeah, but that was a moot point by the end of the fight, right? Because the swell mech that Starscream is, he swooped right in and drove off the crusty mech and made an opening for us to pull together and get out of there. After that kind of favor, we're kind of in dutch to him, and he told us about you, and now we're here." Swindle grinned up at him. "Question is, big mech, what's in it for us to stick around?"

Megatron did not roll his optics skyward; instead, he pinned Swindle to the chair with a gimlet stare, until the hyperactive mech squirmed a little. "I will talk to the other members of your team, and then, Swindle, it will be decided how to proceed. Please wait in the lounge you were shown to."

Swindle left the office and sent the next one of his team in.

`~`~`~`~`

"You already know who we are," Brawl said as he dropped into the waiting chair, working a kink out of his knee in the process. "So cut to the chase; how law and order and old school are you, Teach?" Amber optics glinted as Megatron paid closer attention. "Yeah, thought that might get your attention. I know who you are under all those upgrades you've tacked on. Took a few classes, you see, to better myself, shooting for being an officer."

"I was unaware of this, Brawl, as it was not in your public records," Megatron told him affably. "Now, why don't you tell me about how you and your team came to be here?"

"Easy enough. We went to Iacon, because it's all over the place that the Senate was toppled and the mech that did it could be found there. Right up our alley, that whole anarchy bit. Only, the mech is so full of himself and high on sniffing fumes that he can't see just what kind of asset walked in to his office." Brawl huffed through his intakes indignantly. "So when he gets around to pulling this senatorial command rust trap on us, I'm all for jetting out. Getting ready to say that to Bee Oh, and then there's an explosion. My audios aren't processing what kind of weapon made it, so I'm all for going to see what was going on."

"And then you..." Megatron prompted when Brawl's optics narrowed in thought.

"Well, Ol' Primo decided the attack was our fault, and he tells folks to shoot at us, which no big thing. We've already worked out the juice on how to be the Big Bad to end all Big Bads, see. Except, he's got all these minis climbing over our grills and 'Tex can't even pop his rotors, until your jet there swooped in and drove them back a bit. Then we got our link on, and that was all she wrote for that part of Iacon."

"And now you are here."

Brawl rolled his shoulder struts to loosen them up. "Better than the deep freeze or with them crazy Autobots, Teach."

Megatron considered, then nodded. "Please wait in the lounge."

Brawl rolled up out of the chair and made his way back, sending on his teammate.

`~`~`~`~`

"Sit down, please."

"Why?"

Megatron looked at the blank-faced rotor mech, and reminded himself this one was the intellectual of the group. No telling how the long incarceration in nothingness had shaped that processor behind those flat optics.

"Because it is the polite thing to do when discussing one's future," Megatron said. "Please, sit."

Vortex regarded the chair, then the mech, before judging the distance to the door and finally accepting the seat.

"Will you tell me your part in events that brought you here?"

"Do I have to?"

Megatron wondered if the mech was only going to speak in questions. "Let's try a different tactic, shall we? Provide me with an overview of what you think will come out of the events you have experienced since being released from the storage facility."

Vortex considered that for long enough to make Megatron shift in his seat. "Upon release and reconnaissance, it was decided by team choice, as we have found we are bound by new parameters, that we would go investigate Iacon City's status, perhaps seek employment there with the one who overthrew the senate." Vortex flicked a dust speck from his armor in disdain. "He's absolutely insane, you do know?"

"That has been a working hypothesis for some time now," Megatron said.

"The interview was a boring rant in ego-mania, and then there was an assault on the location, led apparently by the Seeker known as Starscream. The timing of our arrival versus that of the attack led to the inevitable conclusion we were allies of the aggressors."

"Logical, though false," Megatron said, to encourage more words.

"We fended off the attacks on ourselves, then shifted into the gestalt unit after space was cleared by Starscream. I do not remember clear details of the merge actions, but after, it was decided that we would follow Starscream's forces back here, and take our chances on this side of the battlefield."

"Why?"

Vortex gave him the blank look. "Why not?"

Megatron took a moment to process a complex formula in his processor, before nodding curtly. "Please return to the lounge, so I may speak to the next one."

`~`~`~`~`

Blast Off ducked as he entered the office, and looked for all the world like he felt trapped in a tiny little box. If this had been Starscream's first impression, no wonder the soft-embered scientist had brought them back to Polyhex, never mind that the five had been sentenced for being public threats to the safety of Cybertron.

It did not help that Starscream would see a pale echo of his long-lost mate in the shuttle's design.

"So, tell you how we came to be in Iacon and why we're here now, right?" Blast Off said even as he sat on the very edge of the chair. "You know we weren't the Senate's biggest fans, and even if this whole gestalt forged link is new, we usually got along pretty good back then. So we go look see just like we needed to, because you can't operate on one thruster for long, and that's what it was like not knowing what was going on," Blast Off rattled.

"Yes..." Megatron was going to schedule therapy for this shuttle... and he realized he had already decided to let them stay, even if it was a gamble... with Bombshell. Maybe Astrotrain could settle the poor mech down about the necessity of being indoors.

"Only the mech we were after turned out to be a raving hydroweasel, and there was a fight... I'm not great in those, but hey, they hit first... which led to us meeting your Air Commander... he is the Air Commander, right?"

"Actually, Thundercracker is. Starscream functions as my direct aide," Megatron said smoothly.

"Ahh, okay. So he hits me up on the Transport band, which brought back some memories and surprised me, you see, offering us a hand to get out of the hole we were in, since it was his little raid that sicced all those little bots on us." Blast Off twitched a fin and then shifted to the other side of the chair, still on the edge of it. "We took the help, and then Onslaught got us close enough to merge...and when it was over, Starscream invited us back to here."

//So my second did extend the invitation.// Megatron had begun to wonder if that was the case or if the team had acted like a lost cyberduck and followed for lack of anything better to do. "And what are your intentions now? I know your public records."

Blast Off flinched, taking the words as a threat, and Megatron wondered just what wasn't in those public records. "Look, I just want to fly and … not go back."

Megatron could feel the sincerity in that. "Return to the Lounge, and please ask your final member to join me," Megatron said, which led to a hasty retreat by the shuttle.

`~`~`~`~`

Onslaught was bristling as he entered, and Megatron guessed quickly that offering the seat would be pointless. Instead, he shifted from behind the desk to sit on its edge.

"Them guys, they don't need to go back in the hole!" Onslaught came right out and said. "We go on our way, you go yours, all that space-blitz."

"I have not cast any of you out," Megatron said mildly. "Why don't you offer me your perspective?"

"Not much more to add to any of them. Was my idea to talk to Prime, and I told them to go find out what blew up, and then took advantage of Starscream's fancy shooting to get us into the gestalt." Onslaught met the leader's optics with a fierce passion in his own, and Megatron found himself comparing this mech to his loyal Shockwave. "I only let us come here because Starscream offered us supplies to patch up with. We've done that. Don't need to keep taking up your space."

"But would you? If I extend the offer of supplies, energon, and lodging, would that be enough to let you work at our sides?" Megatron invited.

Onslaught looked skeptical. "So we can be under your leash? Do your dirty work, and then get shoved back in the hole? No thanks; bought that deal once, and it didn't work out good for my mechs."

Megatron was intrigued, hearing a story there, but time, time was always needed for establishing trust. "No, Onslaught. The only mechs who will be confined to such incarceration are those that are captured at the end of this war, that show any signs at all of rehabilitation. I do not mean to set up the same stagnation that led us to this point, Onslaught," Megatron said earnestly. "I am offering you an alliance in good faith, and protection for your team from what Prime has made of the world beyond Decepticon territory."

Onslaught considered it a long moment. "I can end this at any time?" he asked, skepticism heavy in his vocalizer.

"Any time at all."

Onslaught closed the distance, giving Megatron just enough time to stand, and sealing the deal with a firm clasp of hands. "Swindle's going to say you got off cheap, but deal," Onslaught said. He had his team, they had a home for now, and that was the important part in all of this.

"Onslaught... one last question, that I did not ask the others?" Megatron asked as the other mech moved toward the door. Onslaught paused, tensed all over again. "Who brought you online, and who forged a gestalt on you?"

Onslaught spread his hands wide. "All I know is I woke up in this form, and the link was there. None of us know. But I can tell you this. Old legends say that there's ancient tech buried deep under where we were. I mean older than even those aliens that Prime fears so much." He then made his way back to his team, done with answering questions for strangers when he had a team to take care of.

It left Megatron with many new thoughts, but a satisfaction that for all the five had been Senatorial troublemakers, they were just the kind of troublemakers he needed on his side.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bridging the Future Quietly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/413240) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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